It started with Blondie, and ended up as a Zoo with a crew!

This little piggy went to the fair….

Yesterday the little kids found the Halloween box in the closet and within seconds I was surrounded by Captain American, Iron Man, a Princess, and a lovely Bengal tiger who were all running from the bloody masked Scream man. Of course my oldest boy was quick to point out that it wasn’t Halloween.

Since when is dressing up confined to October 31st? I guess Dylan forgets about the times when he and Blondie were little and we used to be super silly. Once I let Blondie put my hair in crazy pigtails and then she decorated them with little leprechauns we made on St. Patrick’s Day.

Another summer day, out of the blue, I painted all the kids in our neighborhood up like clowns. There was no reason for it, just seemed like a good way to pass the day. I felt bad that there were so many kids who seemed to be unattended, so I tended to them all. Our house was like a big play house. I was always making all the little girls outfits to wear and things for playing dress up. I even made Blondie and her cousin little wedding dresses to prance around the house in.

Then there was the little pink piggy. Oh how I loved the little pink piggy! When Blondie was four years old, she had to be a Teletubby for Halloween, and not just any Teletubby, she had to be Po (the reddish colored one). Of course Teletubbies were a brand new gimmick and everybody had to buy it up, and she waited until two days before Halloween to tell me this was her must-have costume, and being that I had never failed to come through, I thought to myself “how hard could it be?”

I had checked our local Wal-Mart, nada. I went to the next town over, nada. I called in reinforcements. Lucky me, my step-mom is always a good sport on a shopping trip. She checked a few places and by Halloween day we still didn’t have Po, so off we went. Target, HEB, K-Mart, Ross, we ran around and around all over town… things were looking grim. So we took Blondie and my four-year-old niece to the (insert scary music here) mall to check out the Halloween store! (Four year olds + over-priced mall costumes = SCARY) Blondie was getting tired, and cranky, and there were no Teletubbies in sight, and tears were threatening to fall down her cheeks when she turned the corner and immediately both the girls spotted exactly what they absolutely could not live without. For Cheyenne, it was Simba (The Lion King) and for Blondie it was the cutest little pink pig.

In the blink of an eye, Po was forgotten and Halloween was saved! Of course I followed the girls around for hours taking pictures of them and by the time Trick-or-Treating was in sight, they looked at me and said “No more pictures!” I laughed so hard at the Hollywood diva’s that it must’ve inspired them. For the rest of the night, they would ring doorbells and say “trick-or-treat, but no pictures please”…. it was hilarious. I don’t think I’ll ever forget how cute they were. (Now days they take about 27 pictures a day of themselves, for their Facebook walls!)

Blondie had so much fun that she just couldn’t part with the Pink Piggy. For months she wore it like it was a regular outfit in her rotation. By Fall of the next year she had gotten to tall for it, but she insisted that there was absolutely nothing else she was willing to wear to the Rockdale Fair. So, I cut the feet off, let her put on some tall pink socks, and bought her a little more time to fit her favorite duds. All night long at the fair people exclaimed “look at the little piggy, she is sooooo cute!” and what did Blondie say?

Here it’s nothing more than a novelty and a way for kids to get candy. There aren’t really any religious or spiritual connotations anymore. Like everything else, it’s just become over commercialized non-sense. I more enjoy the kids running around the house in costumes in the middle of August pretending to save the world, or at least the street we live on!

So much fun! I make my teen-ager go trick o’ treating every year. How else am I supposed to get my chocolate fix between my August birthday and Christmas?
So one time, you made up the neighborhood kids like clowns? Fun for them, but scary for some of us….Eeee!